Bear, Down from the Mountain, acrylic and collage, 36x48” 2021
Exhibited at Two Voices to a Conversation with Nature, a show with Carole Davidson in May 2021. It was my favourite work of mine in the show.
This painting emerged from an organic spiral of colours that represent the elements. The loose shapes of blue (air), green (space), yellow (earth), red (fire), and white (water) plus an overlay of an old sewing pattern marked up with texture, took shape as the sky, mountain, trees, and rock trail. The spiral was retained in the flow of the landscape that leads the eye from the foreground toward the distant mountains and into the clear space of sky beyond them.
This painting hangs in my home now and that space beyond the mountains never fails to open my curiosity about what is here right now.
I had a printed reference for this bear — ready to use in one of this series of paintings. The curved action of the bear moving forward and yet looking back beckoned to be placed in this landscape. As it fitted itself in there, the bear came to represent curiosity while the painting as a whole came to represent the spiritual path. On such paths there seems to be a forward motion and a place to arrive at. But there isn’t, really. The path — the aspiration — is here, the space of freedom is here, patient curiosity is here.
This painting asks the viewer, “what is here?”
It is all here: the momentum of no momentum.
This is the original rough composition.
In a way, like it better.
There are “no words” to describe the ineffable.